Just Business
by Experimental Madness
Summary: An exassassin will have to reamerge to help an old partner in his new assignment.
1. What's the Situation?

Right...I saw the movie Red Eye...loved it...went home and wrote a fan fiction of it...heh, anyway I know there is as of yet no real catagory for Red Eye...until there is one we shall make do with the Misc. I'd like to state now that as Mary Sueish as my character appears to be. She is anything but, but you'll have to make it through a few chapters before you can truely see that...and a special message to flamers...don't, please. It's not productive and we all just get annoyed in the long run. Other than that, please take a look!

**I do not own anything that has to do with Red Eye...

* * *

**

I

What's the Situation?

The semi loud laughing of friends could be heard down in the little café by the hospital. Sitting on plastic chairs outside, three girls of around their early and mid twenties were sharing a few mochas and catching up on the day's events.

The black haired and green eyed woman was talking the most…and laughing the loudest, while the blond and brown eyed woman to her left was quietly listening, with a light smile plastered onto her lightly tanned face. Even quieter still was the odd looking red haired woman with bright green eyes, she was listening to her friends chatting to one another, while she calmly sipped at her mocha, swirling the whipped cream around in her cup until it dissolved into the rest of the coffee.

"Riley?" The black haired girl said, the echo of previous laughter still hung on her voice. "Earth to Riley, come in Riley."

Playing along she cupped her hand to her mouth and pretended she was communicating back on her walkie- talkie. "Yes, Tracy, everything seems to be running smoothly up here…" she was cut off by her friend's laughter.

"Come on Riley!" the blond girl shoved her friend playfully, "Try paying attention for at least ten minutes! Honestly you give your patients more attention then your poor, poor friends."

"Yes, my poor attention deprived friends; I thank you for putting up with me every day…" Riley was cut off yet again.

"Don't give us the old speech, Rilers." Tracy said, using her nick name.

Just then the familiar ring of Riley's cell phone went off, "hang on just one second." Riley sighed in exasperation. She opened the cell, "Hello?"

Her friends may not have heard the other half of the conversation, but they could tell by the look on Riley's face that whoever was talking was saying anything good. Pausing in her conversation for a moment she turned apologetically to her friends, "sorry guys, I've got to go, there's a bit of an emergency at the hospital."

Her friends groaned, "There's always an emergency at the hospital!"

"I'm really…very sorry, I'll call you later tonight! Promise." Riley said, standing,

"Promise?" Tracy questioned again.

"It's me remember?" Riley smiled, "I've got to go, bye."

As she made her way out of the café she put her phone back to her ear, "So what's the situation, Janie…and this time calm down."

"What? Police…two victims…one in critical condition…Janie, Janie I can't understand you when you babble like that, please calm down." She said, picking up her speed as she hurried across the sidewalk, "Yes, Janie I am on my way right now…I'll be there in five seconds. Ok, just relax, I'll be there soon." She shut her phone and hurried in through the hospital doors.

Grabbing her doctor's coat and quickly washing her hands she hurried down the hall. Nearing the receptionist's desk she managed a quick nod and smile to the frantic brown haired woman rummaging through a few papers, "See Janie, now fill me in…"

Janie let out a relived sigh at the sight of Riley, "A few minutes ago, a woman was wheeled in here, along with a man who was very injured; the police were following them. They were talking to the nurses and the doctors; and I thought that you should come, because we need all the help that we can get, and…and…"

"Janie, please, everything's fine. Now do you know their names and where I can find them?" Riley said, cutting Janie off before she went into hysterics.

Janie took a calming breath, "Yes, their right down the hall, the woman's outside, sitting down on the chair, her name is Lisa Reisert."

"The man's?" she hurried her.

"Umm, I think they said his name was Jackson Rippner."

Riley coughed a bit and said in a snickering voice, "Excuse me?"

"Um, Jackson Rippner…look I only know what they told me, things were very rushed…we're still trying to get more information…" Janie tried to explain.

"All right, Janie, I've got the gist of it." Riley waved, "Go back to your paper shuffling!"

Janie let out a relieved sounding laugh. "I hope everything goes well, Riley."

Riley was off down the hall, seated on a chair in the waiting room was a young woman with curly brown hair. She seemed distraught and a bit disoriented. Riley felt a bit of pity and sympathy as she neared her she cleared her throat, "Ma'am? Miss Reisert?"

The woman glanced up at her, "y-yes?" she sounded a bit jarred.

"My name is Dr. Riley J. Thompson, "she tried to make her voice more sensitive and calm. "If you would come this way please…"

Lisa stood shakily and Riley took her by the arm to help support her, "How are you doing?" she asked quietly.

"I'm fine…fine." She dismissed the question.

"Are you…" Riley was cut off.

"Please don't ask me that." She snapped.

"Sorry, it's a doctor thing to ask questions..." she tried smiling friendly like. "Right in here, Miss Reisert." She steered her towards a room to their right.

"Please take a seat," she motioned towards the doctor's chair.

She sat down and folded her hands in her lap clenching them tightly. "Now…" Riley grabbed the files hanging on the door and she flipped through them. Whatever she was reading she kept it to her self. She set the papers down and went over to her patient; checking for broken bones or any major injuries.

"Well, you haven't broken anything and there doesn't seem to be an internal bleeding." She announced, "but you have sprained your ankle…don't worry, it's not major, and you have a few bruised ribs. I think it would be a wise decision if you stayed the night so we could run a few test to check for any possible head trauma or possible concussions." Riley quickly wrote down her assumptions in Lisa's medical files.

"Stay the night!" Lisa repeated, "Oh no, no I can't! I…I have to get back to work! I need to check if everyone's all right and my father he'll be…" she seemed to grow more worried and hysteric with every word.

Riley silence her gently, "It was not a direct order, merely a suggestion, albeit I would take it to heart, if you have suffered any brain damage it would be neigh impossible to tell otherwise."

"I can't…work and…" Lisa began to repeat again.

Riley stated again with a little more conviction in her rapidly increasing impatience ness, "With all due respect, Miss Reisert, work will still be there when the tests are done!"

"I thought you said it was merely a suggestion." Lisa retorted.

"And as your doctor it is my job to make sure the more serious suggestions are taken." Riley said, her green eyes piercing.

Lisa wrapped her arms about herself, hugging herself for comfort, "I can't, all right? I just can't!" she seemed to be one minded about her decision.

"Then may I _suggest_ coming in tomorrow for those tests?" Riley sighed, giving in.

"Yes, tomorrow would be fine." Lisa said, nodding her head slightly.

Riley tried cracking a friendly smile, "All right then…now let me go get you some ace bandages so we can fix that sprain of yours." She started for the door.

"No wait please! I er, don't want to be left alone…" Lisa said, possibly aware of how foolish she was sounding. "I don't mean to be acting so childish…but…but!"

_Defiantly one of Rippner's _Riley thought humorously to her self, but she wisely did not let her thoughts show. Instead she gently patted her on the shoulder. "If it helps…some of us actually do understand what you went through…" Riley's gaze meant that she was not saying this out of pity. "But I can assure you, no one will harm you here, okay?"

Lisa gave her a slight smile and nodded her head; her eyes were beginning to tear. Riley inched towards the door once more, "I'll be back in a flash."

As she was walking back with the bandages she allowed her self a quite chuckle. _Admit it, Riley, you missed this excitement._ She opened the door and poked her head inside, "See, back again."

She could tell that even though she had only been gone for five minutes or so, Lisa seemed a bit jarred and scared of her surroundings. _Did we really cause this much damage?_ She thought as she began to tightly bandage the woman's ankle. Once she was finished she straightened herself up and smiled as she helped Lisa off of the chair, "There, all done. Now will you please remember what I said about those tests?" Riley said as she led her to the door.

Lisa smiled slightly, "there is no possible way that I could forget Dr. Thompson…" her voice seemed slightly bitter.

As she Lisa left; Riley collected her medical information and briskly walked over to the front desk turning in the files to a more relaxed Janie. "How was she?" Janie asked politely.

"A bit shaken up, but she'll be all right." Riley sighed leaning against the desk, "now about our next patient, how is he?"

"Actually the new report just came in…" she rummaged through a few papers before handing her the new files, "Dr. Branett says he's doing much better then they originally expected."

Riley nodded her head as she looked over the files, "good, good…" She stopped reading and looked up again, "and about the police? What's the story with them?"

"Well I haven't been told much…but according to them he's a very much wanted assassin. Apparently they've been trying to nab him for years." Janie said solemnly.

_Well that's not new._ Riley though slyly; "then I now understand your panic."

"Well it was a bit unnerving…seeing all those police men barging through." Janie shrugged, grouping a few papers together and putting them back in their proper files.

Riley tapped the desk with Jackson's files, "Well I am going to go check on our assassin, make sure things are still going as well as Dr. Branett's been saying."

"Right, oh, hey! Maybe we could catch some dinner later?" Janie smiled.

"Yeah, if works not too late!" Riley called back, _but it looks like today just got a whole lot more interesting… _

She walked down the hallway, glancing up from the medical information occasionally to make sure she wasn't about to take a wrong turn in her temporary distraction. Taking a quick left she opened the third door down and stepped inside quietly.

Hooked up to respiratory and other medical tubes was a young man. He was handcuffed to the hospital bed, which Riley smirked at when she saw them. Oldest trick and the easiest one to get out of…of course that was saying a lot from one who hadn't been in the business for over two years. She placed his files on the desk and she walked over to check on the equipment.

He was seemingly unconscious, but that of course could be another ploy; but taken into consideration the extent of his injuries she made a silent bet with herself that he might not be faking this time.

Just as she was about to walk back to her papers his unhand cuffed hand shot out and grabbed her wrist. She gasped through her teeth so it came out more of a controlled and nearly silent hiss. She spun around and found herself staring into a pair of ice cold blue eyes.


	2. Business Partners

Yay, I finally managed to update my story! One day...six more to go...oh it's going to be a long night, heh...ok fanfiction is being screwy with me so It keeps earasing parts of my story...at least that's whay I get all the time. It marks astreths where my swear words should be and sometimes it just blocks out a whole paragraph. If it's just my computer please PLEASE review and tell me you can see everything.

* * *

II

Business Partners 

Neither one spoke for a good few minutes until a slow realization dawned upon the injured man. He slowly released Riley's wrist. She smirked, "Glad you still recognized me…no don't answer me!" she chided as he was about to speak.

"I'll admit, I was a bit shocked when they told me you where in here, God man! What's happened to you, taken down by a _girl_? And believe me she didn't look like quite the fighter." She smirked as she walked around to the other side of the bed and took a seat in the chair.

"You must have known I wasn't always going to be there to fight your battles…" Riley laughed, the glare he shot her was anything but friendly; in fact it was down right murderous. "Now, I'm sure you have questions…no I said don't try to talk!" she interrupted herself again as he was about to open his mouth to respond. "As I said, I'm sure you have questions. One might be why did I suddenly disappear? No it was not you…don't flatter yourself," she laughed again as he tried to take a swipe at her, but the handcuffs held him back.

Any further conversation between the two was cut short as an older man walked in, blackish graying hair and dark eyes he seemed to be professionally examining Riley and Jackson before speaking with a mild 'harumph' in his voice, "How is he, Thompson?"

She loathed the way he called everyone Doctor, or by their last names, but she was smart enough to pick and choose her own battles and this was a pointless one. "He seems to be doing well, and he's just woken up as you can tell."

"Yes, yes, very good, very good." The other doctor responded, "Let the man rest for now…the sooner he gets better the sooner the police will take him out of our hands."

Riley walked out of the room following the doctor. "Sir? Are they giving us a time limit on how long he can stay?"

"He stays until he is fit for transport. You know it's against the law for the police to officially arrest an injured person." The doctor said as he bustled about the hallway.

"Yes I am aware of that." Riley said, "but how long exactly do you think that will be, all in your professional opinion of course Doctor." She could play the part of a suck up excellently, and she new Dr. Branett would give any kind of simple information away to just anyone.

The sly little remark seemed to do the trick after much 'harumphing' the doctor finally responded, "I'd give him four weeks a month and a half maximum."

_That's plenty of time_, Already Riley was working out the smaller details in her whirring brain. "Thank you Doctor, that's all I needed to know." She walked off down the opposite direction.

With a click the door to her apartment opened and with a sigh she scuffled inside with tired feet. She threw her keys onto the kitchen desk; removed her shoes and set them down on an unused chair.

Rubbing her forehead she sat down on her small couch. This awoke a fat, gray looking fuzz ball that could have easily been mistaken for a medium sized pillow. With an indignant 'meow' he set his yellow eyes onto Riley.

"Sorry, Gregory…" Riley apologized with a yawn.

The cat, Gregory plodded over to sit on his owners lap. She ruffled the fur between his ears and with a purr of contentment he began to fall back to sleep. "Yes, I love you to, Gregory…" She chuckled at her cat's action.

She turned on the T.V and slowly found her self zoning out to the droning of the 11 o'clock news. Just as she was beginning to slowly fall into a stupor like sleep the upcoming report jarred her from her falling senses.

'And this just in, reported recently an attempted assassination of deputy secretary of homeland security Charles Keefe. More details still coming in, so far the attempted killers are still at large, but the manager behind them, Jackson Rippner, was recently admitted to the Galloway Hospital; the police plan to make a complete arrest once he is fully recovered from injuries received during the attempt.'

Riley began to lose interest once the anchorman had turned it over to the local weatherman; and it was either before the weekly forecast or after that she had made her full plans to help him escape.

_Wait a second;_ she thought to herself,_ why exactly am I going to help him? I mean he would have left me for dead if the same had happened to me…hell if I couldn't have kept up with him he would have killed me himself._ She sat up, much to Gregory's dismay as he was forced to leap from her lap and back onto his comfortable couch. "Ungh…what are you thinking Riley?" she thought out loud to herself, as she paced over to the desk.

"You have a nice job, a quite life now. Why in the bloody hell would you put that all at risk for a jerk of a partner's life?" she lamented.

She walked over to a cabinet and took out a bottle of Tylenol and swallowed to pills to ease the throbbing pressure in her head. _But that's just the damn thing…he was my partner…_with a groan of a sigh she leaned her head onto the cabinet door. Her eyes shut in concentration. "Stupid…" she lightly bashed her head on the door, "Stupid, stupid, stupid idea, stupid plan, and stupid even to be _considering_ it…" with each word she reinforced her conviction by bashing her head on the cabinet door.

When she found that this was doing nothing for her headache she moved away, "He'll kill me when he has no more need for me anyway…" _Then again he's threatened me with death on several memorable occasions…_she contradicted herself.

She began to pace the floor, her conscious battling it out with her more devious notions. "He abandoned me! I mean, why should I offer my help…he got himself in this situation…and…and he should damn well stay in it!" She nodded, "right…no help…"

Just then there came a soft knock on her door, with a sigh she walked over and opened it, Janie was outside, "Hey, couldn't sleep either?" she smiled.

"Nah, not with all of the excitement of the day…" Riley said, leaning against the door posts. "You want to come in for a while?" she offered.

Janie grinned, "I was hoping you'd say that, I brought some stuff for us." Janie smiled handing her a plastic bag.

Riley opened it to find a bag of Smarties, and Candy Corn, she chuckled and smirked, "How did you know I like these?"

She shrugged, "When you work with someone for nearly a year and a half you pick up a few things now and again…"

Riley smiled, "Come on in…want anything to drink?" she offered as Janie came inside.

"Just water, thanks."

"Sure thing…" Riley got out two cups out and filled them both with water and ice. She handed one to Janie, who was already seated on the coach petting a purring Gregory. "You shouldn't pet him…or he'll never leave you alone." She said, sitting beside her friend.

"Oh I don't mind, I like cats." Janie smiled accepting the cup.

Riley ran her finer over the rim of the cup as if thinking for a moment, "Hey Janie?"

"Yup?"

"I have a question…completely hypothetic of course." Riley said.

"Ok, shoot."

"Let's say you had a friend and he was in trouble and you knew you should help him, but he kind of…well didn't help you when you were in trouble. Would you help him anyway?"

"Of course, he was still my friend one time." Janie said shrugging then turned on her slyly, "Wait a minute, are you talking about, you know, getting together with an ex or something?" she said coyly.

"What!" Riley nearly sprang out of her seat, "No…no, no, defiantly not! No, no way! I _meant_…erm, like an old partner…and an old _business _partner, just business."

Janie smiled, "I see, well I'd still help him…_whoever_ he is. Maybe I'm just a sucker, but my friends stay my friends no matter if we really are no longer close. You get it?"

"Yeah I do, you're a good person Janie, thanks." Riley said, nodding her head and meaning it…_but you know what he always used to say…_She cut off her train of thought before it could hit the tracks.

"Hey, no problem. I consider you a friend too, Riley, so I guess I just proved my point." Janie smiled.

"And I'd consider you a friend also…" Riley smiled and nudged her, "and if we don't get started on our candy, Gregory will have eaten it." She pointed to her cat that was just about to dig his face into the plastic bag on the counter.

Riley burst in through the hospital doors, bustling through the other nurses and patients while at the same time attempting to tie up her long, unruly hair into a decent ponytail. She was holding papers in her mouth has she hurried along; as soon as she had her hands free of her hair she pulled the papers from her mouth. "Dr. Barnett!" she called nearly colliding with him in her rush.

She quickly recomposed herself, "Dr. Barnett, I'm so sorry I'm late, there was a lot of traffic and I was trying to put these files together and…"

"You were still late and that's the main thing." Barnett cut her off in his no nonsense voice, while at the same time still hurrying through the halls.

"Yes, I know, has Lisa Reisert arrived yet?" She asked.

"Right down the hall." He sighed.

"Thank you." She rushed off down the hallway to her room.

Sighing deeply she marched into the room where that same pretty young woman was seated on the doctor's bench. "Back for the tests I see." Riley announced in her best cheerful manner.

"At your urgent suggest, I was almost sure I had no choice." Lisa replied in equally good humor.

Riley smiled and unclipped her files from the door and quickly examining Lisa for improvement on her previous injuries. "How are you?" she asked treading carefully around a touchy subject.

She sighed and unexpectedly said, "Better, much better." She flicked a few stray locks of hair out of her face.

"Good." Riley smiled, "now." She straightened up and placed the papers back into the nilla envelope, "what you need to do is go straight down this hall, then make a right and to your left will be…oh forget it. Why don't I just take you myself?"

"Oh no, that won't be necessary. I'll figure it out."

"Please, I insist at least this way I won't have to worry if you got lost or not." She smiled.

Lisa smiled too, but there was something strangely familiar in the tone Riley had just spoken in…hauntingly familiar. She shook it off, "All right." She agreed.

As they walked off down the hall, they had to maneuver their way around the bustling doctors and nurses hurrying to their patients, some in more serious condition than others. "I didn't think it could get so busy this early." Lisa mused.

"People don't waste time to get themselves into accidents…" she paused as she threw a sideways glance at the door to her right, "or other such things…"

Lisa stopped, catching the glance. Silently cursing her timing Riley was forced to halt in her progress as well. "Is that…." She pointed inside, "Is that _him_ in there..." the frosty ness of her tone nearly cracked a half smirk from Riley.

"If by him you mean Jackson Rippner, then yes that would be him." Riley responded. "Come on, it's not good for you to be watching I don't think…" she suggested trying to move her away from the door.

"Right, right…how is he doing, if it's all right to ask?" Lisa said while following Riley down the hall.

"Better than we expected."

"That's a shame…" There was no mistaking the contempt that laced Lisa's tongue.

"Miss. Reisert, believe me or not I do understand why you hate what he did, but this is a hospital and here we focus on all of our patients recovering. Not the opposite." Riley found her self retorting.

"Of course, I understand, and I'm sorry I didn't mean it quite the way it sounded." Lisa apologized as the both turned the corner.

They reached the appropriate room and Riley opened the door, "here you are. The tests should only take about fifteen minutes or so."

"Dr. Thompson." Lisa called just as Riley was turning to leave. "Er, that's the second time I've heard you mention that you understand what happened to me…how is that?"

Riley winked and put on a half smirk, "That's classified information."

"Classified or just too personal for me to be asking?"

"Both." Riley said making her answer final before she turned and walked down the opposite end of the hall.

As Riley was about to enter Jackson's room she nearly crashed into a nurse walking out. "How is he?" Riley haphazard the question.

"Oh, he just woke up a few minutes ago." The nurse said, fidgeting, "in my opinion the sooner we can get him out of here the better, he scares me."

Riley bit down hard on her bottom lip to stop from laughing as the nervous young nurse flounced off to join another group of doctors. As she stepped inside and took the files off of the clip board she commented dryly, "Congratulations, you are now frightening the staff, which won't make it too easy on your recovery if no one is willing to assist you."

"What the hell do you care about my recovery?" His voice was raspy and slightly wheezy as he tried to breath after each word.

She turned, "Well for starters, if you died on me it wouldn't look very good on a resume." She turned back around to finish her notes.

He tried acting as if he had not heard that last jibe, "Where is she?"

"Who?" Riley asked innocently.

"Lisa Resiert, where is she?"

"If I told you it's not like you could walk off and find her, so as of now it's not very important."

"That's cute Riley, real cute, but…" as Riley was walking over he quickly grabbed her arm and yanked her slightly off balance so that she fell closer to him. "I'm not in the mood for your games, I need to know where she is now and where she's going, and you are going to help me…"

"Why?" she hissed, her tone matching his, "give me one good reason why I should? The ball is in my court now and I don't have the desire to pass it back." She shook his hand off of hers and she straightened up.

"What about your job, huh? You like working here…and your friends who I'm sure you have. What makes you think that I can't get people on you to, oh I don't know, mysteriously find ways to make both of those things disappear?" he hissed his voice straining with every breath.

"You see here's the thing, _Jack_; you never were very good at blackmailing, which would explain the mess you are in right now. If this job ends, I find another one, if my friends are picked off one by one what makes you think I _care_." Riley said, drumming her fingers on the desk.

"Because you've stayed away for nearly two years." Jackson retorted coolly eyeing her, "now what reason would you have for disappearing like that?"

"You know me, Jackson; I never had a good reason for anything." She said right back, collecting his files and papers and heading out from the room.

She could hear his faint, harsh and painful chuckle, "By the way, Riley, red doesn't suit you very well…"

Riley ran a hand through her long red hair, tugging it in annoyance and indignity. She made no retorted, she just kept walking out. _Let's see how you like being abandoned now, Jackson!_


End file.
